Marines try training women to be grunts

Sgt. Vanessa Jones and her Female Engagement Team on patrol with infantrymen in Marjah, Afghanistan in 2010. The Corps is considering whether women should be allowed to serve as riflemen.

Nelvin C. Cepeda

Sgt. Vanessa Jones and her Female Engagement Team on patrol with infantrymen in Marjah, Afghanistan in 2010. The Corps is considering whether women should be allowed to serve as riflemen.

Sgt. Vanessa Jones and her Female Engagement Team on patrol with infantrymen in Marjah, Afghanistan in 2010. The Corps is considering whether women should be allowed to serve as riflemen. (Nelvin C. Cepeda)

The first female Marines began enlisted infantry training today as the Corps launched a year of research into prospects for women in the service’s defining combat specialty – the “0311” rifleman.

Female officers were allowed to try Marine infantry training starting last fall, but this is the first time enlisted women have had the chance to test their mettle in the warfighting job at the heart of the Corps.

Female Marines in the infantry

The first female Marines began enlisted infantry training today as the Corps launched a year of research into prospects for women in the service’s defining combat specialty.

The first female Marines began enlisted infantry training today as the Corps launched a year of research into prospects for women in the service’s defining combat specialty.

Fifteen female Marines started the first of 59 days of training today with roughly 250 men in Delta Company, Infantry Training Battalion. They checked in Tuesday with the School of Infantry East at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

The Defense Department, under pressure from Congress to eliminate or justify gender-based employment restrictions, rescinded its direct ground combat exclusion policy for women in January. The services were required to present plans for integrating women into all job fields by 2016, or justify why an exception should be granted.

Air combat and most warships have been open to women since the mid-1990s.

For now, women attempting Marine infantry training will not be assigned to the infantry even if they pass. Completion of the infantry course will be documented in their personnel records and help the commandant determine whether to recommend opening the field to women.

Marine officials said they were surprised at how many enlisted women are interested in the infantry. Some 51 percent of about 720 surveyed at Parris Island, S.C., where all female recruits become Marines, said they would consider volunteering for infantry training.

“Most of them feel that this is something historic,” said retired Marine Lt. Col. Leon Pappa, who is leading the research for Training and Education Command. Other reasons cited by respondents included: the hope of fighting in the infantry someday, desire for a challenge, and the belief that women should be allowed into the infantry.

Among a company of 114 women who graduated from boot camp this month, 42 passed the physical requirements to enter infantry training and 19 of those volunteered for the research program. Four reconsidered after reporting to Infantry Training Battalion and will proceed with their regular job training.

The women are undergoing the same physical screening tests for the infantry as men, including a three pull-up requirement, Pappa said.

Top reasons cited by female recruits who said they were not interested in infantry training were the risk of injury and satisfaction with the job for which they enlisted.

Backlash

Adding women to the infantry and other direct ground combat jobs is vehemently opposed by many veterans and active duty troops. Critics say women are unfit for hand-to-hand combat, integration would be disruptive and combat effectiveness reduced.

Many also fear that standards will be lowered to help more women qualify despite weaker average upper-body strength and increased susceptibility to stress fractures under heavy loads.

Other countries that have women infantry now include New Zealand, Israel (in a specialized unit), and Canada -- which opened the field to them in 1989. Australia has been researching the issue for five years and made the change this year; it has one female officer in infantry training now and another who will begin soon, U.S. Marine officials said.

Very few women have joined infantry units in those countries, and their unit cohesion with male counterparts has sometimes been rough. A female infantry officer from Canada who spoke at Quantico, Va., home of The Basic School and the infantry officer course, said maintaining existing standards for pullups and other physical tasks is critical for women to earn the respect and trust of their brothers-in-arms.

The Marine Corps was the first of the U.S. armed forces to allow women on an experimental basis into infantry training. The Army and U.S. Special Operations Command are still evaluating whether to accept females in direct ground combat training.

For the Corps, the most male among the armed forces and most dominated by grunt infantry, allowing women to serve in that all-male bastion would be the biggest change in the service's 238-year history.

When the Corps released its timeline in June for potentially integrating women into the infantry by fall 2015, Rep. Duncan Hunter, a Marine veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, said "this is a big shock to Marine Corps culture and history.

"The infantry is the Marine Corps," said Hunter, who served as an artillery officer.

The Corps surveyed troops last year about women in combat and found that about 17 percent of male respondents said they would likely leave the service if women are allowed into combat jobs. If given the chance, 34 percent of female respondents said they would volunteer for a ground combat unit.

The Commandant, Gen. James Amos, visited Parris Island and the Camp Geiger area of Camp Lejeune last week to discuss the infantry research.

Pappa said there hasn’t been much pushback against accepting female volunteers at the infantry school.

“Everyone understands that we’ve been doing this research almost two years and the importance of providing the commandant with data,” he said.

Among Infantry Training Battalion staff, “their only concern was will they have to do something different in training females,” Pappa said. The answer was no: “You train them just like the males.”

The men and women starting infantry training this week are following the same program as always, he said: “we are not changing standards or doing anything different.”

Infantry training

After initial physical screening tests, the first half of the infantry course is virtually the same as the 30-day Marine Combat Training all other enlisted Marines must attend under the service's “every Marine a rifleman” ethos. Both programs include long hikes, field training, marksmanship, patrolling and other basic infantry skills.

The second half of the infantry course delves deeper into job requirements for riflemen, including urban fighting, advanced weaponry and tactics instruction, and a two or three-day culminating field exercise.

Women in Delta Company are housed in their own squad bay but their training is integrated with men, as it is during Marine Combat Training. Three female combat instructors and a female first sergeant from that program were assigned to the infantry school to act as mentors for the women volunteers.

In a parallel line of research, the Corps started accepting women into its infantry officer course last fall. So far six have attempted the 13-week course. None passed.

Odds of success are higher among the much larger pool of female enlisted Marines attempting the shorter, eight-week infantry course. The women volunteers can drop out of the infantry course at any time, unlike the men training for the military occupation speciality in their enlistment contract.

Women volunteers will be accepted into all 17 rounds of the enlisted infantry course this year before researchers present findings to the commandant by October 2014. The goal is to have 300 women volunteer for Infantry Training Battalion, evaluate their physical and academic performance, determine how many women are interested in the infantry, and why.

New jobs

The armed forces took steps to open some ground combat units and jobs to women last year, before the Pentagon rescinded its policy.

Since then, the Marine Corps has opened 92 jobs for women, for ground intelligence officers and positions in the three Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Companies, said Maj. Shawn Haney, spokeswoman for Manpower and Reserve Affairs.

The Marine plan signed by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus on May 2 detailed the potential timeline for opening a total of 54,000 active-duty and 16,000 reserve billets reserved for men.

As it stands, 31 primary job categories out of 335 in the Marine Corps are closed to women, in addition to 16 other job categories.

Of those, the largest category by far includes the infantry, followed by artillery and combat engineers. Among the nearly 35,000 active-duty Marine positions in primary job categories closed to women, the integration plan indicated more than 25,000 fall in the infantry, including rifleman, machine-gunner and mortar man.

The Army, by comparison, which is more than five times the size of the Marine Corps, planned to potentially open 61,255 infantry positions to women among its active-duty, guard and reserve forces.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story stated that the United Kingdom has female infantry. It does not. U-T San Diego regrets the error.